


Quiet

by LunarExo



Series: Johndaveweek 2018 [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: JohnDave Week, M/M, Mundane Fantasy, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 11:05:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15141725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunarExo/pseuds/LunarExo
Summary: Dave didn't know adjusting wasn't thriving until he finally got a taste of true peace.





	Quiet

_“Oh my god, I forgot to feed Oreo before I left for work! My poor sweet baby’s gonna go hungry!”_

_“Ew, this guy smells kinda funky.”_

_“I wonder if I have enough time to stop for breakfast.”_

_“Haha, titties…”_

Lately, Dave had seen a lot of people raving about the magic of white noise generators. Static, rainfall, or most importantly, background chatter. Unintelligible, unimpressive, and unending, it was designed to provide the perfect backdrop for better thinking. 

It’d taken a long time for Dave to find the chatter in his mind that unobtrusive—twenty-one years, to be exact—but he was pretty sure he understood the hype now. For years he’d resisted hearing the thoughts of others, desperate for the sound of just his own mind. But ignoring it only made them louder, a cacophony of voices all expressing themselves, safe with the thought that only they could hear what was in their own heads. It was only listening to them that made them less loud, until they faded into the background with all the other idle mind chatter.

Now, it was routine. Sitting on the bus, eyes on his phone, he could shift his attention to every person in the bus without even thinking about it, recognize their thought, and move on. Rinse, cycle, repeat. By now, he didn’t even bother processing what he heard. For all he knew, someone could be reminiscing on their first murder and he’d be none the wiser, all too willing to acknowledge and move on, his focus trained on the ‘what type of taco meat are you?’ quiz he’d pulled up on his phone.

The bus stopped, three people leaving and two getting on. Briefly, Dave recognized the change in voices, right as he determined that his ideal spot to spend the day was a nice bed with a warm cup of apple cider.

But two people had come on. Dave looked back, seeing both an older woman settling at the front, and a man around his age with messy black hair. Yet, he only heard one voice join the fray. The taco quiz was forgotten immediately as Dave turned, staring at the source of the silence. He’d never met someone he couldn’t hear before. Even newborn babies thought in indistinct fuzzy images, and sometimes a crow flying overhead would reward him with the image of himself from above, or a really good looking piece of garbage.

If he couldn’t hear this guy, then something weird was up, and Dave wasn’t going to sit by while it happened. Phone shoved back into his pocket, he got his sorry ass up and dragged it to the back of the bus, plopping himself unceremoniously beside the enigma in question.

He glared as hard as he could at that messy mop of black hair, squinting hard until, suddenly, the guy turned his head, hands going up to mess up the already scraggly bedhead. “Is there a spider in my hair again? Can you see it?”

Dave frowned, shaking his head. “No spider. Sorry to burst your bubble dude.”

“…Does my hair piss you off?” 

He looked so calm about the whole thing, like people really did just approach him about his dumb hair. Dave couldn’t help but grin a little, even as he shrugged his shoulders. “Something like that, I guess. Not really though, your hair looks fine.”

“…So are you this weird to other people, or just me?”

Dave had the good sense to look embarrassed at that accusation, even as he reached out in his head, searching out the silence this stranger had left. 

What he found was more confusing, more startling than anything he’d seen. Everything was… Quiet. Blissfully, peacefully quiet. It was like tasting real pizza after spending his whole life eating frozen, or tasting real soda after being given only diet.

It was so overwhelming and disorienting that he didn’t notice the world around him again until the man himself squeezed past, standing at the door to the bus as it opened and _oh, shit,_ that was his stop too, Dave just barely making it off before it closed its doors and drove away.

With all the commotion earlier, he’d nearly forgotten the reason he was out. It took a moment to realise exactly where he was, but after that it was just a few blocks until he was standing outside an apartment building, texting a strange number.

‘yo hey john this is dave  
im outside your place now ready to check it out  
hope you got it all nice and sparkling for lil ol me you know im a real stickler for cleanliness  
actually i really fucking am not please let me in its kinda cold’

He heard the electronic click of a lock being undone, and then Dave was inside the apartment and heading upstairs, his earlier commotion all but forgotten now that the familiar buzz of people had returned. 

Floor ten, apartment six. Dave knocked three times and waited, shifting from foot to foot. Then, the door opened, and he found himself face to face with one John Egbert. Or, as Dave recognized him, the only person with a quiet mind.

Immediately John started glaring, shaking his head, “no, nonono, it was you this whole time? Dave is weird bus guy? Weird bus guy wants to be my roommate? Come on, this has to be some sort of prank, right? You were actually funny and almost-normal in your texts! I liked you!”

“Hey, whoa, I can explain!” He held his hands up in a pacifying motion, John’s head stilling but his glare remaining, even as Dave continued, “look, just. Let me in, let me take a piss, and I’ll tell you everything, alright?”

It was slow, but John moved aside to let Dave in, frowning as he did, “I have a baseball bat you know. You don’t want to mess with me.”

“Yeah, cool, alright. Where’s the fucking bathroom?”

\---

Twenty minutes later, Dave found himself sitting on a nice secondhand couch in John’s living room, nursing a cup of tea as John stared at him, stars in his eyes. “So you can read minds? That’s so cool! What am I thinking right now?”

“I don’t fucking know dude, that’s the point! I have no goddamn clue what you’re thinking and it’s annoying as hell!”

“So, what? My brain doesn’t exist for you at all?”

“No, that’s not it,” Dave frowned, rotating the warm mug in his hands, “you’re still there, s’just… Quiet. Listening to you, it’s like being in one of those freaky ass floating chambers spas get you to lie in so you can chill the fuck out.”

“I’m a float spa?”

“Yeah, sure, you’re a goddamn float spa. You make everything else quiet, and after years of noise it’s weird as hell.”

John pointed a finger at Dave, squinting suspiciously at him, “and how do I know you aren’t full of shit?”

Dave shrugged, leaning back in his seat, “you don’t. Could get your friends to quiz me, I guess, but I don’t really wanna go around spreading the knowledge that I hear voices in my head that aren’t my own, you hear? People are pretty fucking nasty about that sort of thing, from what I’ve heard.”

“So why’d you tell me?”

“I thought I owed you, after that stunt on the bus. And you have all those dumb movie posters hung up? Come on dude, nobody is going to believe a weird thing you say. Besides… I’m real fucking tired of apartment hunting.”

“…How many have you looked at?”

“One. But I think I’m good,” he put his feet up on the coffee table, laughing when John shoved at them. It was probably a little dangerous to let himself get used to the blissful silence John brought, especially so soon after meeting, but he’d just have to take his chances.

**Author's Note:**

> then john and dave fall in wuv and get married and dave sleeps better than ever
> 
> happy jdweek!!!


End file.
